In Need
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Remus has truly lost everything. Hannah is a very good listener. But perhaps what both of them need to heal the wounds of war is something other than words. A Remus Oneshot Smut story. RL/HA


**A/N: This is the next in my line of Remus oneshot smut pairings, the last being Remus/Gabrielle Delacour. That was fun. ;) This one's Remus/Hannah Abbott, post-war, no sleeping with young children or anything like that. Everyone is of age. Hope y'all enjoy!**

** -J**

Remus was sitting in the Leaky Cauldron again, probably the twentieth night in a row. He couldn't really keep track anymore, drunk or sober, it didn't matter. It was always the same, empty, lonely, bitter...

Tonks was gone. Teddy had gotten suddenly ill and died. Everything that had mattered was gone. Sirius, James, Lily. Everything, everyone was gone.

"You've had enough, Professor."

Remus blinked, looking up into the friendly face of Hannah Abbott, his former student and the new landlady at the Leaky Cauldron. She ran the bar with an iron fist, and she always made a point of keeping things at a level state in the bar. Fights didn't break out, every young girl had someone looking out for them, and old men trying to drown their war sorrows were always cut off before they had a chance to drink themselves completely into oblivion and do something stupid.

He fell into the last category, but Remus didn't feel like he should be sitting there like the other survivors of the war his age. He shouldn't be alive. He didn't want to be alive.

"Fine," Remus sighed. "I'll just sit here, then, staring at the bar."

Hannah sighed, looking around the mostly-empty bar before sitting down next to him, resting her hand on his arm.

"Professor, do you want to talk?"

"Not a professor," he snapped. "Not anybody."

"Well, what am I supposed to call you, then?" she said gently.

"Remus," he slurred, looking at her hand, which was still on his arm.

"Well, Remus, do you want to talk?" Hannah said kindly. "You look like you could talk a bit."

"You're working," Remus pointed out.

"Remus, there's nobody else here," Hannah sighed. "The bar closed hours ago. It's very nearly morning. You probably need to talk."

Remus blinked, looking around to find that she was right: The bar was completely empty and he could almost see the beginnings of morning light in the light coming through the window. He had stayed past closing, and Hannah Abbott had let him. Why had she let him?

He probably did need to talk, but he'd denied himself that fact so long. There was no one to talk to, no one who really understood. But Hannah, she wouldn't judge him. She'd seen him drink day after day. She understood that the pain he was feeling was terrible. Awful.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I guess I should probably talk."

"Well," she said with a small, friendly smile, "I'm here to listen."

He told her everything, about how afraid he had been to let himself love Tonks, how terrified he had been when she'd become pregnant, how nerve-racking the wait for the baby had been, how overjoyed he was when he found that Teddy hadn't had his condition after all. But he told her as well about the deaths of James, Lily, Sirius... Peter the first and second time. She listened well and occasionally said things that were incredibly wise beyond her years. Remus supposed that her whole year grew up far too fast, being with Harry Potter, experiencing the aftermath that came in his wake. When he'd more or less finished, saying everything short of how much he despised himself (although perhaps that was implicit in his other words), she told him about her experiences in the war, in school, and after the war.

"So you see, we're both pretty lonely," Hannah said softly, her thumb caressing the back of his hand gently. "But that doesn't mean it's all over. Someone else can still come along and brighten things up. Darkness doesn't last forever."

Remus was hardly listening to her words of comfort and encouragement. He was instead drunkenly watching the way her lips shaped the words, the beautiful way her lips shaped the gentle words she spoke. He reached up his fingertips to touch her lips, her soft, sweet, enticing lips.

Her words stopped then. Her lips ceased their forming of words and he could feel her breath catch against the skin of his fingertips.

Instead of stopping to think about it, Remus leaned in, replacing his fingers with his lips, feeling himself magnetically pulled by the moment. If he had been a bit more sober, he might have been surprised by the way she didn't pull away, or maybe even by the way that she began kissing him back, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him closer to her. The moment built fast into a sequence of delicious moments, Remus and Hannah exploring the small space between them, exploring every bit of each other they could from their position together at the bar.

Without even thinking about it, Remus made the move again, pulling her onto his lap, making sure that the space between them was as little as possible. He allowed her to undo his shirt, scratching her nails first down his chest, then tossing the shirt off of his arms and dragging her nails passionately down his back.

Even through his hazed mind he was able to think that she was going to make some husband very happy one day.

"Are you sure?" he managed to get out of his mouth as she began peeling off her shirt.

Apparently, she was sure, because they spent much of the rest of the time together exploring each other physically, as they had done psychologically, enjoying the pleasures of each other's company. Remus hadn't had anyone since Tonks, and he discovered quickly that Hannah had never had anyone. He probably would have felt bad, being her first in that way, if he had been sober, in his right mind.

Maybe he was sober, in his right mind. He couldn't tell. The muddling of his mind from desire made it even harder to think about his sobriety, not that he really wanted to. All he could think of was how good it felt to touch her, to kiss her, to feel her body against his, to feel himself inside her...

When she cried out his name and he simply cried out in climax, the were panting, on top of the bar, him hovering over her. They wouldn't do it again, he knew. She had mentioned an upcoming date with Neville Longbottom. There was no place in Hannah's life for a washed up werewolf, and Remus would never impose himself on her. It hadn't been love, anyway, it had been a need, a need that was satisfied between friends.

As he dressed and left in silence Remus couldn't help but think that he'd have to find somewhere else to do his drinking, for Hannah's sake.


End file.
